2022 is going to be the year of health and habits. Let me know if you share some of these or have different ones!
Exercise & Health & Mindfulness
Attempt Whole 30 starting 1st week in January
1 Vegetarian day a week
Breathing and yoga once a week
Yoga for 30+ min on Sundays
Breathing for 10+ min on Wednesdays
Deadlifts/Squats/Bench at least twice a week
Soccer/Salsa or Soccer Drills once a week
Community Impact
Volunteer 4x throughout the year for Habitat for Humanity, a Foodbank or an Environmental association
Professional
Azure Solutions Architect Certification
Databricks Associate Developer Certification
Create a comprehensive Business Plan
Finish and apply lessons from Flow Research Collective Z2D
Apply lessons learned from Atomic Habits
Reflection on last year's resolution below...
Looking at my goals and resolutions from last year - it's pretty clear a lot of these fizzled out because I just never kept up with them. Priorities change and I think I need to take a look mid-year and review how many of these I want to continue to commit to. I'm hoping by changing my resolutions this year to specific habits it will make it easier for me to fulfill.
First with diet & gut health - the Vegetarian days a week - I barely kept track of - but this year I want to enforce with just 1 a day. Maybe I can just stick to that. The rest I didn't follow through on.
The exercise piece I actually did very well until Angie had to returned to the office, and the California trip happened. It didn't come back to normal until I found a new gym in November. Yoga is something I stuck with - breathing was hard to keep up, but stretches and exercise I remained quite consistent throughout the year.
As for the final 2 categories - I only kept up with the AWS Solutions Architect. All others I just didn't keep up with. The difference this year was priorities changed and it was hard to keep up.
Diet & Gut Health
“1.5” days vegetarian a week - 1 full day and one day with only one meal with meat.
Try Whole 30 in February or April
Vitamin research - Activated charcoal, Co10Q, Magnesium, Vitamin B Complex, L Glutamine, D-Manose, Fish Oil...
Cook recipes from Half-baked Harvest
Exercise & Health n Wellness
Lifting heavy again - deadlifts and squats ~ 1x every 2 weeks
Breathing and yoga once a week
Yoga for 30+ min on Sundays
Breathing for 10+ min on Wednesdays
Continue exercising at least 2x a week with Angie + 1x running and/or soccer drills
Read Fast this Way and go through the 2 week program
Limiting phone use in the morning and evening
Professional & Volunteering
Volunteer 3x throughout the year for habitat for humanity or food bank
It took me many moons but I finally did it! I finished reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This is an excellent read for anyone making critical decisions and engaged in critical thinking. This book covers how the human mind is programmed to think, how it performs in certain situations, and how humans are designed to make certain mistakes. As deeply insightful as the themes are in the book, I did not find them very practical. Instead of my typical reflection, I am using this excuse of a book review to coalesce my thoughts on a new decision loop. This is not so much to disparage Thinking Fast & Slow as it is to uncover a different approach to how humans make decisions.
Sidenote – I will open the “black box” of decision making and use it as my framework for this reflection – I hope you will agree with me that this provides an effective way of thinking about decision making. I will use a personal mix of the OODA/DADA loops adopted by the military and pioneered by John Boyd (excellently covered here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/ooda-loop/) as well as Tony Robbin’s Cycle of Meaning. I believe there is a combination of Observation/Perception, then Synthesis or Meaning generation before decision/action is taken all within an emotional context. These actions interact in the world to create some kinds of effects that feed back as observations. Credit to Graham Mann https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahneman and https://marklooi.medium.com/summary-of-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow-3d1c2ea0e6a Mark Looi for their summaries allowing me browse quickly there rather than re-reading sections of the book.
My blocky, boxy cycle of thought.
Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman summarizes human patterns of thinking. The primary theme of the book touches on the logical and primitive sides of the brain. This classic paradigm has been discussed as far back as ancient Greece when Plato created the allegory of the charioteer and his race horses. The logical mind must work to rein in the emotional horses and direct them appropriately. In the book, Daniel names these horses System I: the subconscious mind governed by primal instincts. The charioteer is System II: the conscious mind where cognitive thought occurs. Throughout the book, Daniel uncovers how these two processes work together to evaluate decisions and how these can go awry. He tells the reader “When you are in a cognitive minefield, slow down and ask for help from System II”. While good advice, he goes on to cover nearly 100 biases and heuristics in various situations across hundreds of pages. As well-intentioned as Daniel was, his advice is not practical across ALL the biases in the book. Instead, a decision-making process will prove better at reining in the horses of System I.
In Thinking Fast & Slow, Daniel did not propose a framework on the steps humans use to make decisions. Throughout his experiments, Daniel and other psychologists treat decision making as a singular struggle between System I and System II. From heuristics to biases, to testing probability of returns, he feeds subjects various inputs and tracks the corresponding outputs for further interpretation. Imagine trying to understand the human digestive system as a battle between stomach and intestines by only tracking inputs and outputs! There is a struggle and dynamic between System I and System II – but there’s much more to the story. Decision making is a process! System I and System II can still adequately explain what happens in situations – but it limits the ability to analyze the thinking process in more practical ways. To further decompose decision making, it should follow the stages of thinking. This allows readers to validate at critical points throughout the process to mitigate mistakes. Correcting or recognizing a misstep is much easier than situation mapping the countless biases listed in the book. In addition, using this practical approach gives System I a chance of being evaluated as a helper and not as a detractor (as portrayed often in Thinking Fast & Slow). Rational thought should be evaluated as a process instead of an outcome.
The first stage in any decision making process begins with observation. Human beings perceive the world around them through their senses. Before any decision can be made, an understanding of the circumstances, the task at hand, and the available options must exist in the cognitive mind. In the early chapters, Daniel touches on priming and how it can influence the subconscious mind to feed related information to the conscious mind as it comes up with ideas. Related themes are scattered throughout the book through framing, anchoring and even overconfidence. Despite all these various names given by psychologists, they are all symptoms of the same problem: The conscious mind can only process and analyze the information given to it. Daniel did correctly identify this root cause in the mnemonic WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). Instead of considering this itself a bias, Daniel continued to reference this root cause as a reason for many biases. The effective approach is to treat the issue at its source rather than managing its various symptoms.
It’s clear that incomplete or incorrect observations can lead to faulty ideas and decisions. Often, humans make decisions without full knowledge of all details. In the absence of clear answers, Daniel demonstrates how the subconscious feeds its own ideas to the cognitive mind. Personally, the results should not be surprising – after all, WYSIATI. As Daniel’s studies further indicate, this becomes a problem when external observations interfere with decisions by bringing in factors not related to the problem at hand. The conclusion Thinking Fast & Slow comes to is decision makers should be wary of ideas that “pop” into their head without logical basis. But this assumes the subject recognizes all relevant (and therefore irrelevant) information to the problem at hand. The better approach is (when possible) the prudent decision maker should ensure they are gathering all relevant facts through adequate brainstorming or research. Relevant observations to a decision should be identified and others should be discarded. To this, Daniel does mention pre-mortems to brainstorm potential failure scenarios so one can prepare appropriately to avoid them. However, even he does not have answers in the book to combat environmental priming, lazy consciousness, or confirmation bias. Perhaps because slowing down and asking for help from System II can only help when the problem is cognitive – not when the problem is with observation.
Next, after the brain has the information, it needs to be synthesized into something meaningful. This continuous process running in the brain is what Daniel calls the association machine and I shall name rational coherence. Given observations from the world, the mind breaks it down into parts (analysis) and tries to structure it into narrative frameworks (meaning). The mind does both simultaneously, so quickly, it sometimes makes connections where none exist. Much of Thinking Fast & Slow is spent on how the human mind creates mental connections using the availability heuristic. Or fills in gaps with a narrative fallacy. Or jumps to conclusions with the representativeness heuristic. The mind is relentlessly rationalizing the world around it. The biases Daniel outlines can create false assumptions, but what can the cognitive mind do about the subconscious engine? And – is it really all that bad?
In this case, Thinking Fast & Slow is quite helpful in addressing exuberant rational coherence. When Daniel wrote about his time evaluating Israeli army recruits for promotion, he proved using an objective set of scales can prevent the mind from falling into simple heuristics. This is one way to measure the merits of the conscious or subconscious ideas. In addition, he outlines when intuition SHOULD and SHOULD NOT be trusted. Consistent environments with opportunities to learn patterns over time (chess, artwork, etc…) are areas where intuition can excel. However, unpredictable, and inconsistent environments do not give intuition a chance to perform any better than random guesses (economic or political forecasts). These are useful tools and advice to when the mind’s interpretation of events can be trusted. But taming intuition and analysis is not the only aspect of meaning generation.
Daniel and many psychologists often evaluate the correctness of their answers based on mathematical or logical grounds. While true to the experimental method, this is a recipe to test computer programs and machines – not human beings. One of the differences is humans’ ability to imagine what does not actually exist. Call it vision, dreams or creativity. Are these illogical conclusions supposed to be suppressed? It is true, the biases discovered by Daniel are cognitive traps. However, these same tendencies to “fill in the gaps” are the same characteristics that spark human ingenuity. Daniel’s primary goal may have been more rational thought, but irrationality has a rightful place in the thought process. Diversity of thought contributes to the variety of answers to a particular problem, and a better chance of getting a desired outcome.
Moreover, these experiments often observe single outcome decisions. Not all problems humans face are tractable and have a single right answer. Often, the problems are intractable, meaning they do not have a definitive solution. This ”singleness” of thought is a limitation in evaluating the human thought process because it does not accept alternate interpretations. As a married man, he should have learned he may see a pillow on the couch, but his wife sees a decorative throw pillow that is NOT supposed to be used as a prop for his feet! Misunderstanding? The same pillow means two very different things to different people. It’s not a question of “What scientific method should be used to provide a correct use of the pillow?” Both views are correct. The differences lie in what the pillow means to the other person. From vaccines, masks, and the American Flag, there are many valid interpretations, uses and purposes for these items. Narrowing rational decision making to a single answer ignores many valid ways to interpret the world (and probably results in much of the disagreement facing humanity today). Rational thought alone does not lead people to the same conclusions. Rational thought in real life can lead to different interpretations.
Interpretations and observations do not happen in a nutshell. They occur within an emotional context that colors observations into perceptions and interpretations into meaning. Rather than calling these feelings, Thinking Fast & Slow uses System I as a proxy, which is not entirely accurate. System I primarily interferes when emotions are involved. The endowment effect creates strong favorability to the familiar (like viewing a favorite sports team’s tickets as worth MUCH more than the ticket price). Yet a Yankee’s fan does not have an endowment effect with losing Opera tickets because the feeling does not exist. System I is technically still active, but the distinction here is the emotion. Feelings create these biases in certain circumstances. Thinking Fast & Slow identifies patterns of how emotions can affect thought. However, it fails to identify and define emotional states as the primary reason for the endowment effect (among other biases).
Feelings can also limit the analysis cycle to certain types of conclusions. Feelings play a role in prospect theory, loss aversion and the availability cascade. In prospect theory, an individual’s starting point matters regardless of the net gains/losses. Through loss aversion, Daniel demonstrated the average person values losses approximately twice as much as gains. In the availability cascade, fear of flying due to plane crashes or terrorist attacks far outstrips the much higher probability of a fatality while driving. Feelings can not only color perceptions and interpretations, it can affect the magnitude of value placed on decisions. Daniel’s probabilistic payout experiments tried to explain this in discrete mathematical terms. Insights into how humans keep score in their head with the sunk cost fallacy, and fourfold pattern with certainty and possibility effects are extremely valuable in understanding how risks are rationalized away. The emotional story is a powerful one, but as dangerous as they can be, rationality alone will not make anyone feel better about their decision. The best thing to do is marry emotions to a rational decision or decision process. Combining these helps guarantee the best outcomes with the least distress.
The final piece in the decision making process is decision/action. This critical step is the “output” of the entire process. Many individual settings covered in the book are analogous to the countless decision sets humans experience throughout their lives. However, reality differs from these experiments in several major ways. First decisions/actions are often done in groups or chains. For example, a decision to go to the gym in the morning involves a critical decision to get up out of bed early with smaller decisions on what to eat, wear, etc… This also implies that some decisions are more critical or important than others – something the book does not address directly. A more practical approach would be to ensure rationality at critical decision junctures to ensure optimal outcomes.
Next, Thinking Fast & Slow does not cover the consequences of decisions. Decisions and actions affect the real world and the subjects themselves. Continuing with the example of the early gym goer, their hunger and eating schedule will be different depending on whether or not they went to the gym. Furthermore, unlike these experiments, certain opportunities can present themselves to subjects a second time. This gives subjects an opportunity to change their approach. Agile DevOps is a modern software development philosophy that promotes iterating quickly and “failing fast”. How devastating can biased decision making be if it is continuously tested and re-evaluated against objective standards? Shouldn’t standards like these be proposed as an excellent guardrail against faulty decision making? While these may not be realistic to view under psychological experiments, there is a broader scope of thinking patterns not discussed in the book.
Daniel’s research is a launch point to understand human rationality. Unfortunately for Daniel and psychologists, life is messy and not structured like their experiments. He uses the System I vs System II paradigm to try and address how rational thought can aid decision making in a modern age. However, without a proper decision process, he treats decision making as a black box function analyzing various inputs and singular outputs. System I is largely regarded as a troublemaker leaving the reader constantly second guessing every idea for logical rigidity. Decision making is a process, and while there are ways it can be led astray, some of those inherent flaws also are part of what makes humans unique. From observation and analysis, to perception and meaning, there is often more than one right answer and one right way to make a decision. To think rationally, it takes a governed process, more than a governed mind to achieve better outcomes.
Areas for further study:
In the latter half of the book, he covers extensive cost/benefit analyses and uncovers the fourfold pattern as it relates to probabilities of outcomes and their payout. He also covers intuition and rational coherence as well. But should a cost/benefit analysis be treated the same as rational coherence? I believe there should be distinctions made for types of analysis – perhaps along left and right brain? There could also be a distinction across multiple stage analysis – such as a complex math problem. This would be a fascinating area to explore further.
Reflection - What do you want to be when you grow up?
My neighbor’s son came over the other day to show me a picture book he drew of me and him picking rocks out of my front yard. I told him the story was missing one final page - a picture showing the green grass growing after all the hard work of combing and preparing the dirt. As he trotted away - I felt a mixture of love, caring and self-doubt. He found a friend and playmate in me. More than that, there was a part of him that looked up to me. Was someone redoing his lawn, picking out rocks really someone worth looking up to? Just like the story he drew - was I complete yet?
When I grew up, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up the answer was clear - astronaut. Duh. Who doesn’t want to go into space? But after my father passed away, existential questions came into the picture and my answer vanished. WHY does an astronaut, getting good grades, or taking out the trash matter? Right or wrong, my struggle to answer that question has prevented me from visualizing that person I want to grow up into. From my early teenage years to today, I don’t think I have found someone or something I aspired to be. Yet, time has not wasted its irony on me. I may never have decided on a new hero, but there are others that can look up to me.
This isn’t the first time - in university, in high school, when you became the senior all the young freshmen and sophomores wanted to emulate you and do the things you do. In those moments, you followed the dogma and gave them facets of how to evolve and thrive in the community. Yet, this time feels different. Rather than something I have earned, I feel this mantle being thrust upon my shoulders. I do not feel vindicated. Why me? Why now?
I don’t have answers to these questions. Nor have I figured out the existential answer to life, the universe and everything. One thing I do know, is that I matter to him. His joy and passion for the world is affected by me. Even if it is as simple as encouraging him to throw rocks into a pile or watch the runoff water from sprinklers listlessly flow downhill. I may not be the astronaut I wanted to be, but perhaps I can still help a little boy explore this planet.
Nearly 2 months ago, I was listening to a Goldman Sach’s podcast: The Great Reset - A Framework for Investing after COVID-19. The primary message is about the 4 main themes that will drive change from the pandemic - Resilience, Sticky Learning, Risk Based Market Segmentation, Regulatory Reset. What struck me the most was the risk based market segmentation and what that means for the economy.
Picking the example from the podcast, when you read the history books, you would think the Great Depression followed WW1, but that’s actually not the case. They were separated by more than a decade, during which the 1920s saw two movements. Both the rise of jazz and flappers, while at the same time the Prohibition law was passed because another group of people felt we needed to repent for our sins and change our way of living to avoid the atrocities of war and plague. This parallels the situation today. There are large segments of people who do not care for the virus and are not wearing masks, social distancing or washing their hands. And still there are many others that are living their lives with prudent caution following all guidelines and taking even more extreme precautions. AND we are still all living together in one big country!
I used to believe that a polarized dichotomy such as this could not continue to exist. Naturally one of these themes would overpower the other, and the ideas that drove the other side would die away. However when I look back, I do not believe either of those thoughts died away, they merely morphed when new issues arose. There are still desires to live for the moment, desires to ‘return to normal’ and desires to stay in control and stay safe from harm. I believe now that the Great Depression simply brought a new crisis to focus on.
While I don’t see an immediate resolution to our current binary state, I strongly believe in another decade the environmental crisis will be at our doorstep. I hope that myself and our nation are ready to meet this crisis as best as we can.
I finished reading Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell and I wanted to write some of my thoughts and takeaways from the book. I was hoping this book would give me a more effective way on interacting with strangers. Instead, the book reinforced what I already know.
Expecting a person’s speech to match their actions is not guaranteed.
Our interpretation of a person’s speech and actions is just as important as the person communicating.
If we do not interpret a person correctly, it can lead to harmful misunderstandings to one or both parties.
Assume best in people until evidence proves otherwise (if there are red-flags, track them)
Everyone understands it is impossible to judge someone based on what they say/did once. Yet despite knowing this, everyone still does it! In psychology the phrase: ‘fundamental attribution error’ captures this predisposition. It is our tendency to incorrectly identify the causes of someone’s individual behavior as a result of primarily internal influences, rather than external. For example, have you ever noticed anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac? … =) This is fundamental attribution error. Often the reasons for an individual’s behavior are primarily because of external events. These fast drivers may normally drive the speed limit, but today they are late for an appointment. Those driving slow may be visiting family and unfamiliar with the area. Much in the same way, because a person sounds genuine and attentive, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they truly do care. Sometimes, a gregarious person may seem terse and quiet because they are stressed out from work. We all recognize that there could be a plethora of reasons why someone’s actions do not reflect who they truly are. What is amazing, is how quickly we forget this.
It happens during most people’s commute. It is just SO easy to glare at the slow driver. We all know, we should assume the best in others. But in that moment, there is just ONE more person making life inconvenient. Road-rage aside, it can be tough to take a deep breath and stop an emotional override. In Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell goes over how a cop’s suspicion and a stressed out individual led to harassment, unjustified arrest and a suicide. Misunderstanding another’s intentions can create blame, frustration and conflict. These have real consequences on people. While not covered in the book, I personally work to recognize when I’m getting flustered (with good or bad feelings). This is a signal to double-check whether the feelings are warranted and give me a second chance to adjust what I will say or do.
One of the other major topics discussed in Talking to Strangers was our predisposition to assume the best in others. He went into detail on two recent sexual abusers - Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky, and USA Gymnastics coach Larry Nassar. In these hand-picked examples, the abusers played on our notions of expecting normal or good behavior. Parents were fooled for years, sometimes decades, into sending their children back to these same coaches time and time again. Previously, with Fundamental Attribution Error, we incorrectly judge people. On top of that, we have people actively trying to trick us! What do we do? Are humans really just that bad at understanding others? In short, Malcolm Gladwell proposes to trust but verify. Continue to assume the best, but continually evaluate assumptions and interpretations based on evidence.
Overall, Talking to Strangers has clarified the need to be open and flexible judging others based on actions and words. While I must take liberties in understanding others, many people will not give me the same benefit. I have lived by the adage that everything you do is a self-portrait of yourself. Other people will take what you say and do and infer your character from that. Transparent communication is a clearer way to share thoughts and feelings and lowers the chances for misunderstanding. Perhaps that is the best way to talk with strangers.
This is the first time I’ve been excited about a business book! The characters, the story and the solution are all too real in this parallel universe that is somehow fictional. I absolutely loved reading all of it. Eight years old for an IT book and it STILL resonates today. Just as everyone who’s read this book recommends - it is a MUST read for anyone in IT.
The book surrounds the infamous Phoenix Project, an over-budget, over-promised and past-due marketing overhaul where development is hurling features over the wall to IT operations to support in production. Like many companies today - any IT failure triggers business users to blame IT for holding the business in a stranglehold. The market outside the business is not slowing down, so the business continues pushing for ever increasing demands to keep up. Meanwhile, because IT has bootstrapped everything together for short sighted gains, they are now bogged down by fragile applications. Meaning, every new change requires navigating a field of landmines. There’s no budget, time, additional headcount, or lessening of pressure in this all too familiar IT death-spiral. This is where our hero comes in.
Newly promoted as VP of IT Operations (after the CIO was fired), Bill enters this scapegoat role into a fire storm of IT audits, financial reporting mishaps, botched production rollouts and operational hell. Through this journey, he discovers all the Work-In-Progress stuck in IT Operations and identifies his key constraint (a whiz in IT called Brent). This allows him to look comprehensively at the work his team is expected to perform as a production line instead of a constant firedrill. Next he identifies the 4 kinds of work - business projects, IT projects, change projects and unplanned work. Unplanned work is the worst kind, as it halts progress on all other productive work. To get back on track, they focus on removing WIP and unplanned work. He temporarily halts any new work from entering the system to catch up on the backlog. Next they control the input of approved work setting a proper tempo for work flows through their group. During that time, they identify any and all work that involves the constraint (Brent) so that they can document work involving him, minimizing his constraining influence. Then they document common processes to standardize them and perform them more efficiently. Finally, they wrote out all the pre-requisite materials involved in each process (starting a DEV environment involves licensing, VM, account access...). Now each task would only be delivered to the next group if all “parts required for assembly” were ready, thus preventing back and forth.
Once IT was running effectively, Bill and his team began to take on broader and larger issues. They began to identify key IT systems that tied to corporate objectives. They got buy-in from those business units that IT was a key enabler. Afterwards, they focused on continuing the relationship and hand-offs between Development and operations. They streamlined the process evaluating the value stream and automating as much as possible. Then they worked to reduce batch sizes and ensure the process only moves forward without rework or issues. The team built in operational resilience with automated testing and havoc monkeys. To top it all off, Bill even included information security as a requirement during the development process and baked it into operations so that it is not a checkbox item at the end. All of this allowed Bill to run his organization effectively and make the business successful as they began to work with IT rather than against it. This collaboration with IT and appreciation for it’s importance to achieving business goals is every IT person’s dream come true.
This book resonated with me first because the themes of the IT death-spiral show up in my everyday work life. Second, it made me start to think about the workload at my job and what lessons I could apply in my role. The primary themes of this book parallels principles I try to achieve regularly.
First - understand how to create a fast flow of work from development to operations to achieve customer goals
Second - amplify and shorten feedback loops to fix quality at the source and avoid rework/unplanned work
Third - create a culture that encourages experimentation, learning from failure, and understanding repetition and practice are prerequisites for mastery
Through my work experience, the best way to make customers happy is decreasing the time to value. This lines up perfectly with the first principle of “the way” as described by Erik. I’ve always thought about making my work more efficient, but now I am categorizing types of work. I have tasks that get handed to me that involve direct sales to clients, sales preparation, internal projects to improve myself or another division, and unplanned ad-hoc requests that get thrown on my desk because they are urgent. Rather than get everything done as quickly as I can, this has got me thinking about how to standardize common tasks, either through documentation or automated scripts. Even looking at the amount of work reaching my desk and whether I can react to them quickly and properly. I try to identify workstations looking at the machine/tools used, the people (manpower) involved, the method and the measures. I’m now looking at my workstream through a production floor lens.
Traditionally, I would have questions such as - “Why is this person in this department so annoying? Can’t they just do what I asked?” Now after reading this book, I have higher level questions that make me think about - “Have I given them all the information they need? Can I expect them to respond within takt time?” I’m now thinking about what things I can do in my own little world to speed up the work myself and those around me.
Next is the feedback loop, I’ve always been a champion of retrospectives and I’m happy to see them used in the book. In addition, these feedback loops are meant to prevent rework. I’ve always viewed a feedback loop as a way to look into DAKI (Drop, Add, Keep, Improve) for actions that I can individually improve upon. This book really emphasized any rework or movement backward in the value stream is a form of feedback. In addition, unplanned work destroys productivity and minimizing it is a top priority. Therefore, when you create a system of work where the flow only goes forward, you only pick what speed you want to move at. While this is unrealistic in my sales support role, I do believe I can minimize rework by taking appropriate steps for documentation, note-taking, and effective communication to ensure we are always moving the needle and moving forward.
To make sure my feedback is effective, I need to measure it. Monitoring what pieces are delivered, work in progress as it enters and leaves my work station, unplanned work... This has made me wonder whether I should be tracking my workload, work in progress, results, and how best to classify it.
The third is the culture of experimentation. This is the one I struggle the most with. While my workplace is very open to experimentation, learning from failure and improving daily work, these are all secondary to primary work objectives. The amount of work coming into my queue is so much, that I could easily work another week without getting everything done. Furthermore, getting this culture right requires practice - and there is a lot more improvisation with no feedback than with deliberate action with feedback. I believe this has more to do with the fact that I’m now on the sales side of things, but still - there’s got to be a way to carve out more time to practice my skills and experiment more right? Should that come at the cost of limiting the amount of work I take in? What work should be de-prioritized or removed completely? New questions that I have yet to answer...
All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and it a beautiful testament to the role of IT in the modern age. IT is now integral to business objectives, and IT operations are tied to business flexibility. As we move forward into the digital age, businesses are focusing on agility, but it is not just about raw speed. Paraphrasing a few lines from the book: [Business Agility] is about how good you are at detecting and responding to changes in the market and taking larger, more calculated risks. Evolving the business offering through continual experimentation, and a process that supports that, is how you can ensure to win now and in the long run.
Big thank you to Gene Kim for detailing the construction of this book and dedication to Dr. Goldratt’s The Goal and logical thinking processes. https://itrevolution.com/construction-phoenix-project-and-selling-devops-downward-spiral/
LIVE: There’s a key vote on net neutrality and the whole Internet is watching
Starting at 10am ET today a key congressional committee will vote on the Save the Internet Act – the best bill we have to restore net neutrality.
Unfortunately Big Telecom shills on the House subcommittee voting today have already proposed dangerous amendments that could completely gut the bill or leave gaping loopholes for Internet providers to block, throttle, and charge Internet users new fees for access.
To get a clean bill that restores net neutrality passed need to show them the WHOLE INTERNET IS WATCHING.
Here are the best things you can do to help:
1. Reblog this post to spread the word. 📣
2. Embed our livestream widget into your Tumblr blog using the code here.
3. Call your lawmakers to demand they vote for a clean bill to restore net neutrality.
If we get the bill out of committee without any bad amendments, then we have a solid shot of winning the next big vote on the House floor in the week of April 8. Take a second to help out!
Tony Robbins once said that when managing your business you have to manage two types - the business of today and the business of tomorrow. While I don’t manage my own business, I take this wholeheartedly as being able to be proficient at my current job today and build the skills and abilities that will set the stage for me in my future careers. That is fantastic advice, however it does not tell me where to start or how to judge that I am close to performing according to these guidelines. Seems that those are questions for myself to answer.
For the “current” business, AKA my job, the standards for success are quite clear: Management’s approval, praise from clients, partners and team members, achieving excellence standards as outlined in HR policy... There are paths set by managers, the division and the corporation that I can follow. There are career paths and knowledge bases I can sink my teeth into that can help me sharpen my tools and mind for my role and its trajectory within the company. Unfortunately, for the business of the future, there is no such guidance or guidelines.
For the business of the future, I do not honestly have the faintest clue on where to begin or where I want to go. Do I want to continue my work and career as an architect and a consultant? Should I look at trying to start my own company? Leapfrog into new technology such as blockchain or serverless? Even if I decide where I want to go, do I have the skills to match up and make these things happen? To branch off to another company as an architect or as a different kind of worker?
At this point, the only thing I have figured out is I do not want to stay in my current role and position. It does not benefit me in my three principles of lifestyle, fair pay, and marketable skills. I have gone over this in painstaking detail multiple times with my family and close friends, so I will not reiterate here. However this has only slightly assisted me in my search. I have an idea of the environment I would like to work in. It still has not helped me with the direction.
Taking a leaf from my favorite TV show - Star Trek, it looks like I will need to gather more information before I can decide. I need to do more research into potential fields of interest, working toward AWS, maybe even Kafka streaming, Kubernetes, and a variety of other technologies to see where I can jump and apply my skills. This will also require me to take courses and spend time above and beyond my job to build myself for the next level position.
Aside from learning and researching, I will need to practice my interview skills again. This time around I want to record myself so I can see my posture, mannerisms, speech and make sure I have it all tailored appropriately. I will need to build a new network to bridge into the technology, resources and people. This will provide a sounding board to bounce ideas and get introduced to new ones. I am a very young software architect, it speaks to my ability, drive and flexibility. Let’s see if others believe and need that.
I have a plan to find a solution. Research, training, learning and networking will take time. However, none of these will guide me in the direction I want to go. This is something I need to discover myself. I know that no matter how many precautions I take, there will just be sometimes when I fail. I just need to grab a bit of faith and take the leap. There’s nothing that can save me from the future. I just need to make the best of the situation and leap and leap until I feel I am where I belong.
Earlier today I was venting to my mom and my sister about how one of my senior colleagues wouldn’t allow me to do something I wanted.
I felt angry that I could not do what I wanted because all I needed was their approval. We could use this big client project as justification for my test environment where I could use it to build and test deployment tools that would help me redeploy at other projects. I’ve been building these simple little how to excel spreadsheets which are better than the documentation that comes with the solution. I want to make this better. I want to automate this process by turning it into scripts that we can launch and deploy at the client site so we don’t have to muck around anymore. I don’t like to plod around and manually control these steps. It takes time, its error prone, and its an emerging practice that needs to be further developed and tested. Building an automated program to deploy would mean that I would need to fact test each of these and make it stand up to more variables. I would then figure out where the parameters are, what can/can’t be changed and what is the best for. But this is just me explaining how and why I wanted this and how it could be useful.
I was frustrated because I could not understand why my colleague would not let me do this on my own. All I needed was his approval and for some reason each time I asked about getting this, all I got was more questions. I wanted to bulid this automation deployment tool - I understand I’m not RnD or the actual installer BUT I can still learn from it. It is also out of the scope of my role. Technically as the architect for this project, all I’m supposed to do is just provide guidance. However I can’t do my job if I don’t know what to recommend! If I do not know what to do! What is worse is that no matter who I turn to help they point me elsewhere. Because its not in their job description, or its not part of their role. I’m sick and tired of hearing this. I feel as if they are trying to protect me from doing my own job.
The buck stops here. The client has certain questions that need to get answered about their architecture and making sure the environment is functional. While searching for those answers - I can’t believe I’m having to fight my own coworkers to learn about this and get it done. Its like I’m working with taboo information!
I get so frustrated with all this.
No one has a clear idea of who should be doing what and how it should be done. Everytime I try and come up with a way to make my work more bearable or more sustainable knives are thrown my way. I’m told to focus on something else. It wouldn’t be a problem if they had answers to the clients questions or if it was not important. But this is architecture. IT CANNOT BE IGNORED. EVERY CLIENT ASKS THESE QUESTIONS. If they are too busy squabbling to do something about it, then I will. I’ll be damned if I’m the one ‘not listening’. They aren’t listening to the client.
I need help, and everytime I ask the client questions NO ONE turns up with an answer. Who am I supposed to listen to? Am I supposed to calm down and let this blow over so I can get blamed again when the architecture fails? Who’s covering my job? How can I get better if no one tells anyone anything?
It’s bad enough when I was trying to put out a good piece of work.
My mom wants me to use the word “frustrated”. I agree language can be powerful in helping define how I feel and react to a situation. However at the time I didn’t want to be told how I felt. I wanted to be heard. In these next set of events I found I was not the one listening.
I wanted to give my sister a present for Christmas and did not purchase one before coming to California. I told my sister I could get her something from the mall, but 2 days before Christmas was too much of a hassle for my sister and she changed her mind about going. When I couldn’t find the fuzzy socks she wanted, she told me to come home and not get her a gift. She explained that just as heated as I was now, I refused to listen to her then as I refused to listen to my client. This made me think. How can I do a better job of listening to others?
First thing to note is that I only get this way when I have a strong sense that I am right. I get indignant because I believe what I am doing is right and I refuse to listen to the other person and their concerns because they matter little to the task at hand. In this case - getting my sister a present before Christmas.
Its different because my sister and my mom were telling me that I needed to listen. Listen to what? One thing is true from what they said - I do not fully understand their concerns because I never let them express or explain them. This is something I can work to change.
It is hard to do because I am having a hard time distinguishing what I think to be right and what the other person is working toward. We have different visions and it causes tension. I think that I need to learn to open myself up to listen to what they are talking about and hold my tongue.
This also touches at a particular spot with me because I believe that in order to do the best thing for others, you cannot ALWAYS listen to what they say. Some people when they are in pain will chase others away and the right thing to do is to come to their help and hold them. I also understand that there are appropriate times to bring up tough conversations and pick your battles so to speak. I’m having a tough time deciding when I should override what someone says and do what is best for myself and the other person. As an example, I have limited the set of options I present to a client. Instead of showing options that would be lose-lose or a significant loss for my company, I do not present them as viable options or dismiss them as items we would not perform without additional time/money/scope. This way, we are working together on win-win solutions. Typically we may lose time or budget, but we are able to keep and maintain the main vision of the product/solution.
In each case I’m making judgements and decisions on when to listen. And I want people to trust me that I have their best interests at heart. Perhaps this is why I get so indignant is because I feel at some level they distrust me and my motives? Looking back at getting my sister a gift I knew she wanted to hold off for something better. Without her there to help me decide what she wanted, I was taking a chance at picking out something she liked. On the other hand, if I waited until after Christmas, it wouldn’t be special. So I forged ahead and got her something that she begrudgingly accepted. She did end up liking the earrings I found though.
In that case, I refused to accept giving her a gift after Christmas. With work, it appears that I saw this as one chance for me to test and perform my work. Not approving the internal test environment was stopping me from performing the work I had been assigned. I expect the client to make mistakes like this, but coming from an internal source it made me angry. I was not going to stand for this. I’m not used to being denied the tools I need to work. I’ve been thrown into situations unprepared with no support. I’ve been thrown into situations where I know little more than the client name because my company needs a face in front of the client. But I never believed that I would have to fight internally to do my own job.
This book is about companies that have not just survived for multiple generations, but have thrived as companies that have established their names, brands, products and services as icons of the corporate world. It is a summary of research done by the two authors on what distinguishes these visionary companies from the regular ones.
Grand and incredible companies are that way because incredible organizations of people work to create and maintain them. The authors make it clear that it is not a great individual that runs an incredible company - it is the structure, the culture, the people, policies, incentives... A company does not revolve around the CEO, or the board. It is an organization of people and all the related rules, structures and policies that help build and define it.
The next core concept covered is the power of AND. The greatest companies don’t use “OR” they find a way to do good AND make profits. Not pit them against one another. This thinking forces the companies to come up with solutions that work well for both criteria and creates Win-Win scenarios. It is not enough to do one or the other. It is the ability to excel in contradictory ideas that makes these companies so unique and great.
Core Values + Purpose = Core Ideology which is the driving force of any company. This in its entirety is the character and the identity of the company. The core values are inherent, meaning they are discovered - NOT something that should/could be. They do not disappear when the market does, or generations later, because they are the core of the organization. The purpose is the answer to WHY you exist as a company. It is not what the company does, it can be the impact they are trying to make, or their reason for doing so. It can be quaint, but it must be unique to help identify the company. These are the only immutable characteristics of the company. Everything else is secondary and can change and evolve.
Now that the core of the company has been made, the rest of the company must be geared around evolving and growing. To preserve the core and drive progress the authors provide five approaches below:
BHAGs - decade-long aspirations on what the company wants to become, these can be targets, role models, transformative... They need to be aspirational, inspirational
Cult-like culture - the identify and character of the company must attract those that have the same core ideology and repel those who do not.
Evolution - Darwinian talked about biological evolution, that’s not business. Business is about purposeful evolution. It is about trying to evolve, test and try/explore options in new directions tied to a strong business purpose.
Succession planning - imperative for the continuity of the business core ideologies. Companies may lose their way, or become stagnant. To limit that, there must be strong indoctrination of successive leaders in all positions.
Continuous Improvement - Not simply about learning from past mistakes, but about pushing the boundaries, continuing to excel year over year.
Alignment - everything you do is a self portrait of yourself. Details matter, the big picture matters, reinforcing your statements and credo with policies and procedures, sticking to those core principles no matter what other companies/industries are doing, and cutting out misalignments that undermine your goals. All of these steps will help ensure that you walk the talk, that’s what will make this core culture and ideology real. So much so, that it will become just as self-evident as the principles in the Declaration of Independence.
What surprised me the most is these principles are already things that were self-evident. It seems obvious in retrospective that great companies that outlive their CEO must have succession planning and have cult like cultures with a strong vision and purpose... I think we all know and understand these at some level - and I am glad to see that these good principles shine true in the greatest companies. Second, I almost feel as if these companies are their own religion. These companies provide principles and sets of values to guide behavior, thinking and decision making. The companies provide the purpose for being. All of these are characteristics of religion. I wonder if there is something about tribes or groups of humans that necessitates these traits in religion or visionary companies.
Herman Melville wrote a short story about Bartleby the scrivener. He was hired to do work, but would prefer not to. He preferred not to live at home, he preferred not to leave work, he eventually preferred himself out of existence when he preferred not to eat.
Try as the protagonist might, he was simply unable to get Bartleby to prefer to live. The protagonist had hired Bartleby as a scrivener for his small firm, where Bartleby was too despondent to work. Yet, at this occasion, the protagonist had offered and provided Bartleby a chance for him to earn a living. Bartleby preferred not to. At another time, the protagonist offered a chance for Bartleby to live at his place, and he preferred not to. Finally the protagonist even gave Bartleby food in prison and he still starved to death. Each of these demonstrate how time and time again, Bartleby was given chances to live and he denied them all. It is not society’s problem, it is not the protagonist’s problem, it is entirely a decision made by Bartleby. It is perplexing why Bartleby’s actions are so self-defeating, however, that is not something that can be changed by external stimulus. His despondence is his own and he needed to find a way out of it. He is the epitome of bringing a workhorse to water, but being unable to force it to drink. By refusing to take action, he made decisions where he robbed himself of his own life.
By noting what Bartleby should NOT have done, it implies that there was a better response than his actions. The better course of action would be to treat the job, the place to stay, and the food as presents. They are all special opportunities because they offer Bartleby a chance at life. Preferring not to participate does not exempt you from life itself. We are living beings and we participate in this life. He chose not to give, and then he chose not to take. Even doing the bare minimum would have allowed Bartleby to “live”. Yet more than that, Bartleby was lacking something key: emotion.
He lived a life devoid of emotion. Bartleby’s reaction to the situations which unfolded before him was that of apathy. Many critics use this as an opportunity to ponder the source of his apathy to the world, however it is a pointless exercise. We simply do not have enough information to make any definitive conclusions. Based on what Herman Melville has shown us, the only thing certain is Bartleby’s choice to be apathetic instead of emotive. That choice made over and over again led to his own death.
Bartleby the scrivener is not a story about the futility of life and wondering its meaning. The story does not provide enough information to extrapolate on the meaning of life. What it does demonstrate is the qualities in life and how it can fade away. It is a warning. It demonstrates how Bartleby’s uncaring view of the world and himself unwound him from reality. Bartleby is not an example for humanity, he is the antithesis to it. A lifeless organism that willed itself out of existence. He symbolizes the exact opposite way to live your life. Secluding himself in apathy, instead of participating with caring, engaging in conflict, and taking animated action for better or worse.
Maybe in future add paragraph on his avoidance of conflict?
It was the first playoff game of the fall season and we were up against the highest ranked team in the league. Although we crushed them the last time we faced them, they were now playing at full strength. I ran as hard as I could, I made the plays I thought were the best, and I played it safe to give others a chance to score. Yet, despite myself and my team playing well, it just was not enough and we lost. Looking back at what I could have changed, honestly it wasn’t much. In order to win, I needed skills I lacked to block the opponent and we needed more successful risks. Soccer is just a game, I get that, but is this a metaphor for my life? Is my skill level and risk tolerance simply inadequate for me to get the results I want?
For the last few months, I have been chugging away at my job. I have delivered results to clients, answered questions, developed frameworks, enabled team members and partners alike all in benefit for the corporation. This is what bothers me so much. I’m working to make the company more successful. What about me?
It is pointless to get angry that my work is for the benefit of the corporation - that is why I have a job there. To be fair, that job combined with the help of my parents, has helped me achieve a life at 25 most people work the majority of their lives for. A home, a loving family, a wonderful girlfriend, good friends, and a promising career. If I get the promotion I expect next year, that will be 2 promotions in 4 years. An EXTREMELY fast rise in a corporate environment! Yet, I still feel this is inadequate. If climbing the corporate ladder is not enough, then there must be something else I am looking for. Excitement? Responsibility? Purpose? Whatever it may be, it is my responsibility to ensure I continue to invest in marketable skills. I know the challenges I expect to face are far beyond what I encounter on my job.
Next, many of my friends are making jumps to other companies, starting their own, or doing start up or non profit work. Much like the game I played, I am playing it safe staying at my company. I’m not making any advanced attacks or taking calculated risks. If I am ever going to reach greater rewards I need to start applying more. It is only now that I am planning on taking the offensive, advancing my studies in new tech and applying for new jobs. I need to do more of this if I am ever going to get chances to score, or even to win. I will never know how successful I can be until I try.
There’s always more to do, always more to learn, always more areas to grow. This is a continual cycle. But every once in awhile, I wonder if I should simply follow what some of my coaches have said - go out and have fun. I’m still in the game, you win some you lose some, but I’m still here having fun.
Many times on the holidays (and sometimes on weekends) when I have no obligations or duties I will wake up and feel like a slug. It’s not that I’m feeling groggy or hungover, I just feel like sitting and letting the day float by me with minimal effort. I simply exist. Time and time again, when I think of myself in my slug state and compare it to other times during the week when I address clients and perform professionally - I find it odd that I can have such a dichotomy. Is this my natural state? Just a vegetable waiting to be told what to do?
It can’t be. Or at least it shouldn’t be. An ideal state should involve emotion, thought or movement. Staying in place is not the reality of nature - stagnation is a form of slow death. Thus my ideal state should be closer to an animated state of mind. When I think of my ideal self and the way I want to be perceived, I am reminded of what I call the Adonis state. It’s just my way of describing a state of mind where I am awake and aware, harmonized with my environment and the people around me and in balance with my thoughts and feelings. The Adonis state for me is the best suited for progression and positive change. I am actively engaged in the moment, and I have the mind, willingness, creativity and thoughtfulness to pursue it. Whether its a recipe, research, or fixing up my home. I am in an active state that will lead me to the right path.
All of this lies in contrast to my slug state. I slump down into my slug state most often in the mornings before breakfast and oftentimes after lunch. A clear correlation to my energy levels. But while related to the energy I have, it does not seem to be a form of recovery. When I am in this state, I am a passive sponge - absorbing all that passes by. Using videos, games and food, I fill in the gaps that really exist in my life: amusement, challenges and energy. I do not contribute in this state, I do not make change, and I do not take anyone’s interests into account. I am withdrawn from the world, floating along and taking what I need to survive. I am unsure of the other benefits this state might have for me, but one thing is for certain - if my goals are to grow and flourish I must limit my time in this state of mind.
I know who I am and I know what I want to be, neither of those are a slug. I am proud of who I am. A competent consultant, a growing architect, a loving boyfriend, a good son. I want my thoughts, words, actions and belongings to be a reflection of who I am. I cannot do that in my slug state. If I want to perform, to demonstrate, to give, I must exit the slug state and get into an Adonis state of mind. This is where I can trust myself and my ability to make the right choices in the right situations. The only question remaining is once I am in this state, where do I go?
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
titsay
blakekathryn